I distinctly remember getting a book voucher in my early teens and heading over to the bookshop, as a massive Star Wars fan I ended up picking Timothy Zahn’s ‘Hier to the Empire’ and thoroughly loving it.

It was a pivotal moment in my reading journey and opened up a huge range of books to me.

Imagine the excitement then when I was approved for an ARC of Zahn’s new book.

Now all authors have the freedom to write in whatever genre they wish. However Zahn’s name, combined with the edgy cover art, and the Sci-Fi/Fantasy description gives you certain expectations.

None of these things however gave a true representation of what I was about to read.

Initially, whilst it was nothing like I was expecting the book did grab my interest. However that slowly ebbed away the longer the story went on, and it turned into a fairly dull action/thriller with a peppering of politics.

The characters were flat and two dimensional, the story was predictable and full of cliches. You could almost smell the sweat stained shirts accompanied by loose tie, undone top button and sleeves rolled up.

I felt so privileged to be accepted for this ARC but it was such a disappointing read.

Cloaked Deception by Timothy Zahn is a highly recommended political techno-thriller that reads like an action movie. From the opening we know some group is planning a focused nuclear strike to eliminate one man in ten days. Then we learn that a tactical nuclear weapon has been stolen from an Indian research facility. This starts the countdown to the event that we know is coming but don't know who or where.

There are the two main storylines that are followed in the novel as the clock counts down the days until the planned major event will take place. Two secret agents, using the code names Ten and Eleven, are on a Pakistani container ship in the South China Sea secretly transporting the nuclear weapon. At the same time three scientists are killed and their invention, a cloaking device that can make things/people invisible, has been stolen. FBI special agent Madison Talbot and San Jose detective Natal Delgado begin investigating who took the cloaking technology. Then Angie Chandler, the wife of one of the dead scientists, has a hit squad shooting at her and she escapes with the help of private investigator Adam Ross.

Cloaked Deception is a well-written, detailed thriller that presents itself like an action movie. Honestly, it should be made into a movie. Zahn has all the details for characters, setting, and atmosphere right there, in the plot, along with plenty of new discoveries and twists. There are a whole lot of characters in this novel (but they could be pared down a bit for the movie). The cat and mouse aspect of the people moving the bomb into place versus the investigation into the deaths and stolen cloaking device create an increasing amount of tension as the days pass by and the countdown moves closer to the expected major event. Thanks to Aethon Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Timothy Zahn is one of my favorite Star Wars authors, so I was excited to get my hands on this book.

It is a good techno-espionage thriller. I enjoyed it but there were so many characters! So it takes a bit to figure out all the many players. Once I did though I really enjoyed the story. The story was well thought out and like all other Zahn works, well written.

You get to follow along with both the good guys and bad guys of the story. This adds to the suspense of the story. There are a few “convenient” moments that pulled me out of the story, but on the whole I enjoyed the read.

This was a new genre for me but I did enjoy the book overall. Lots of action with a good pace, interesting technology, and a story that worked well.

"From Timothy Zahn, Hugo Award winner and # New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, comes this pulse-pounding political thriller.

A tactical nuclear weapon is stolen from an Indian research facility, setting off a chain of events that spans the globe.

Those behind the heist plan to use it to take out thousands of innocent people-all to assure death of a single man who they believe is too dangerous to be left alive.

What are the lives of thousands compared to the safety of the world?

At the same time, scientists have invented the world's first cloaking device, able to render its user almost completely invisible. It's the epitome of hidden-in-plain-sight-a game changer for any military. At least until three of the lead scientists are murdered and their work is stolen the night before their first demonstration.

Authorities have no idea the two crimes are connected.

There are ten days before the bomb is set to go off.

Can they unravel the trail of red herrings in time?

The clock is ticking..."

FYI this is a reprint of Cloak. But admit it, you actually don't care. You want the pretty new copy.

I am a fan of Clive Cussler's books, and this thriller reminded me a lot of Cussler's style of story. Right away we get some sort of cutting edge technology, probably not technically sci-fi, since we probably have a research lab somewhere working on something similar even if the real science is a bit different. We also get an odd murder, and a mysterious, possibly dangerous hero. The damsel in distress is also nicely complicated, perhaps in need of a hero, but not totally helpless. There were not as many female characters in this book as in a good Cussler novel, which made this book read like something out of the 80s or 90s, but it was a fun story, and an enjoyable read. I think though that if this is part of a series, I'll probably lose interest if there are not more central female characters in future books.

Cloaked Deception is the new techno thriller from Timothy Zahn, well known author of some of the most influential stories in the Star Wars expanded universe.
This new book from the acclaimed author is a new standalone novel not set in a galaxy far far away and much closer to home. It’s even on this planet.
The story is a military/espionage thriller which involves the theft of a nuclear by a shadowy organisation and are using it to threaten the stability of the government of their country. At the same time three scientists are murdered in Silicon Valley and their piece of tech, a material that can render anything that is hidden by it invisible. A relative cloaking device.
Seemingly unrelated, it becomes apparent that the two things are linked, and the agents assigned to the case must work against time to stop the threat.
This is the second book that I have read from Aethon Books recently and is quite interesting in that they are producing books from well known authors that are outside their usual sphere. However, I must say that Cloaked Deception did not work for me.
Unfortunately, I was not taken in by the high stakes adventure/espionage thriller and instead found it quite ponderous with a high stakes level of exposition in it.
Whilst there is a twist in the sting of the tale (which I must admit that I did not see coming), the journey to the end of the book left me somewhat wanting and when I actually got to said twist, I found that my attention had waned somewhat.
Filled with the regular tropes associated with books like this, I did not feel that there was any subversion or doing anything new with the tropes and instead of hooking me into the story, I found that they just gave me constant eye rolls.
One of the major things that I felt that hampered the plot was that everyone in the soooo competent in their field and yet they were constantly and infuriatingly stupid in determining what was going to happen next. I mean, come on Mr Zahn, stop making your characters dumb in order to prove that the villains are one step ahead.
I have got to say that I really was not on board with this book and found the characters and the plot inherently not relatable and unfortunately couldn’t wait until the end.

Cloaked Deception is fine. A Sci-Fi action thriller that didn't captivate me at all. The characters felt bland, yet the action was good.

I Love Timothy Zahn SciFi so am very grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC as he tries a more political/thriller/scifi story.
The story itself worked well. I loved the idea of the cloaking technology.
It was a bit long but kept the tension up and has a satisfying climax and resolution The characterization could be improved though as most characters were interchangeable. Hopefully Mr Zahn will improve on that in future thrillers he writes..
All in all, though, worth your time f you like a good techno thriller.

Cloaked Deception is a sci-fi political thriller. A group of scientists have invented an invisibility cloak, and it seems there are people ready to wreak havoc to get their hands on it. But who would want it, and why?

The book follows detectives, agents and politicians as they slowly unravel the mystery.

I did enjoy the book, but it could definitely have been shorter. I was interested in the story but at times it felt like it was too slow. There were also quite a few characters, multiple POVs and a couple characters with different aliases so there were quite a few times I was a little. I would have appreciated a little glossary or “character map” to refresh my memory.


Thank you to the author and Aethon Books for this ARC!

Thanks to Timothy Zahn, Aethon Books, and NetGalley for access to the Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I picked up this book knowing that Timothy Zahn was an excellent writer and a Hugo award winner for his science fiction. Quite to my surprise, what I got was an outstanding technology thriller that could be ripper from today’s headlines.

The characters are interesting and believable, the pacing is good and there are enough twists and turns to always keep you on your toes. Given Timothy Zahn’s history, I hope and expect this is the start of a series. Recommended.

My linking to Goodreads is not working correctly, so I am attaching here manually:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6372793404

I loved the ticking clock element to this book, it had everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed in the genre. It had everything that I enjoyed from Timothy Zahn and thought the overall story worked with the characters in this world. It had a tense atmosphere and I thought it worked well overall.

The two major premises of this book are that a group has stolen an Indian nuclear bomb with a plan to use it to disrupt the government of their country. Who they are is not clear until the last 20% of the book, making the story even more astonishing. At the same time in a company in Silicon Valley, three scientists are murdered and their new breakthrough stolen. the breakthrough is a material that can be used to make anything put under the cloth to disappear. The only weekness in the "cloak" is that it only works if whats under it doesn't move.

As we follow the agents of the US government looking for the murderers, the thiefs are continuing with their pursuit of getting the bomb to where they have planned to use it. To move the bomb they have to frustrate anyone who is looking for it. As you follow the two prong stories, the bad guys seem to always be one or two steps ahead of the good guys. The mastermind behind the theft of the bomb and the use of the cloaks to assist hiding it is like a well orchestrated ballet.

This is a well written and thought out book and should be interesting for anyone who likes adventure and military stories.

A thrill ride from the beginning. A stolen nuke, a clock of invisibility start the ride. A large cast of characters make up the rest. Hard to put down.

<b>Overview</b>
Cloaked Deception is a techno-political-ish spy thriller set in the current/near-future. While I mostly picked this up because Zahn is the author who got me into SF as a kid, it was a decently fun read, if a little bloated.
<b>The Good</b>
This story had a fun plot. I wouldn't entirely agree with the claim in the blub that you can't see the twist coming, but anticipating it was actually more of a benefit to the plot than a determent. As with any techno-thriller, there were some spots where Zahn asked you to take a tiny leap with him on the idea; however, there was only two, and the leap was so small that it didn't require much suspension of disbelief. Perhaps this is my very long history of reding SF/F kicking in here.
The characters were all really enjoyable, even the ones whose face I wanted to see punched before the end, which is good, but it means that...
<b>The Bad</b>
Because I liked the characters, I feel like I didn't really get enough time with them. The emphasis is much more on the political and military aspect, so to a certain degree this makes sense. That said...
<b>The Ugly</b>
There are so many characters. I took a wild guess, just based on how certain characters were being written at the beginning, about who the main characters were, and I was right, but by the end I think I could make a solid argument for there being anywhere between one and five main characters. This, by the way, is not the total number of POV's in the book, just the one's I felt like I was supposed to be the most interested in. I honestly could not keep up with all the names, and I only managed to start recognizing the main characters about halfway through. Up to that point, I was just using context clues. This book practically needs a spreadsheet just to keep up with the characters, about half of which are POV characters at some point. If you are great at names, enjoy Excel, comfortable with "figuring it out" as you go (or if the publishers add some sort of chapter/section headers to let you know who the POV is and where they are in this new scene), this may not be a problem for you.
There is a major point of serendipity. Major <spoiler>spoilers, but some of the technology just happens to be ready at the right time. It was only really evident in retrospect, but it could also have been explained away by the bad guy having just changed some plans at the last minute.</spoiler>

Thanks to NetGalley and Aethon Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Timothy Zahn is one of my go-to authors for science fiction. This was my first look at his work in another genre, and I was wiling to follow along because I enjoy his work so much. There was a lot to appreciate here for fans of Zahn as well as readers of authors like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

I just love Timothy Zahn‘s writing style! Loved it in the Thrawn series so far and also really liked it here. Great story that really catched me while reading. It was super cool reading not only Star Wars from the author.

3.5 rounded up
This was a bit long for my tastes. I love Mr. Zahn's writing and Star Wars books; maybe I had higher expectations. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Mediocre political scifi thriller. Characters are tropes and not well written. I wasn't particularly gripped and found this to be fairly disappointing.

I really thought this book was going to be about a man getting his revenge. Unfortunately this really only felt like I was reading a generic detective mystery. Totally not what I was wanting to read. Was still quick and full of action but I was confused as to what I thought it was about. Thanks Netgalley for letting me read this one early.